Independent analysis finds levy reserve drawdown and recommends procurement review

Joe Brown, Managing Director at Clark Schaefer Hackett, presented an analysis May 12 of the children's services levy covering the prior four years and the impending final levy year.

“Our primary conclusion is that we concur with the public consulting group as well as the levy committee in the sense of the levy balance draw down, particularly the aggressive amount of that draw down in the last two years,” Brown said, summarizing the team’s findings and noting that the underlying audited financials showed no indication of impropriety.

Brown reported that while revenues generally exceeded plan, expenditures rose sharply in 2024–25. The analysis identified out-of-home care, contract services and behavioral health as the largest drivers of the increased spend; Brown said there were just under 260 vendors in the out-of-home category and roughly 1,700 vendors in the contract-services pool, with a small number of vendors contributing disproportionately to total dollars. He also noted kinship care grew during the period but was a smaller contributor to the total increase.

The presenter said the analysis did not reperform invoice-level audits — county and vendor audits were outside the engagement’s scope — but recommended further scrutiny of procurement and delivery processes to better understand what was purchased and whether program structure changes could stabilize spend. Commissioners asked follow-up questions about volume, acuity and duration-of-stay drivers; Brown said those factors likely all contribute and that a subsequent presentation was scheduled to explore them in more detail.

Next steps: staff and consultants will provide additional analysis on volume and acuity drivers, and the Commission will receive follow-up briefings in the coming weeks to inform decisions about levy timing and program adjustments.